OK...Get in from work today, on my 1/2 day Friday :), needing to knock a few things off the family to do list before my sister's rehearsal diner tonight and wedding tomorrow. Cell phone rings and it's the same guy that I got my 1st swarm from telling me there's another in a bush behind his business, basically 30 feet from where I got the other.I should have...but couldn't resist! :evil:

Made a quick run out there and vacuumed up all the bees off the bush. Stayed out there till about 15:30 but couldn't stay any longer so I'm sure I left some foragers behind.

Decided on the way home that I would try to open the vacuum bucket on a sheet leading into the Nuc and let them find their way in. That didn't exactly go as advertised... :(

When I opened up the bucket a whole bunch of the bees flew out. When it looked like they weren't making any progress, I dumped the remainder of the bucket into the Nuc. This Nuc was near the Nuc housing the swarm I had collected 2 days ago. It became apparent quickly that most of the bees were gravitating towards the other Nuc. Watched for a while and then had to head out....figured it would work itself out. But it was obvious that while a few bees were fanning on the new Nuc box, the 2 day old Nuc had significantly more bees fanning and were steadily and slowly attracting all the traffic their way.

Got in from the rehearsal dinner about 22:00 hrs and went check on them. As I suspected, the new Nuc didn't have a single bee in it....they had all merged into the Nuc from 2 days ago.

Any thoughts as to why this happened? Did I not have the queen? Was she maybe a virgin queen therefore not as appealing of a draw? Should this combination just strengthen my other Nuc, or is there a significant chance that they harmed it's existing queen? Assuming the new swarm had a queen, what most likely happened to her? etc. etc. etc.

As usual, I have more questions than answers! :)

« Last Edit: April 06, 2013, 08:05:59 AM by Moots »

Logged

"We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." - Ronald Reagan

Sounds like this was an after swarm with a virgin queen from the same parent colony and the primary swarm queen was more attractive than the virgin.

Scott

Logged

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Sounds like this was an after swarm with a virgin queen from the same parent colony and the primary swarm queen was more attractive than the virgin.

Scott

Scott,This is what kind of threw me off....The Nuc I was trying to get them to go into was placed directly in between another Nuc box and hive. The Nuc to the right was the one housing a 2 day old swarm collected from 30 plus miles away, which they ended up migrating into. To the left was the box housing my first swarm collected about a week ago from the exact same location as this swarm.

So.....If they had all decided to opt to the left side choice instead of the right....it would have seemed to make more sense since the logical assumption is that those two are from the same parent colony.

Logged

"We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." - Ronald Reagan

After about a day or so they don't "remember" the old queen. I try not to move new splits into established bee yards anymore if I can help it because I've had some move into queenright colonies before. Doesn't happen all the time but does happen.

Scott

Logged

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."